adminLAGOS/ACCRA — A mob rampaged in the central Nigerian city of Minna yesterday, burning political offices, leaving a police officer dead and prompting an all-day curfew, officials and residents said.
“The Niger state government has imposed 24-hour curfew on all the 25 local government areas of the state as a result of the breakdown of order in Minna,” a statement issued by the state government said amid a nationwide strike and protests over fuel prices.
Thousands of protesting Nigerians defied a government order to end a nationwide strike that entered its third day yesterday as deadly religious violence sparked renewed talk of a looming civil war.
Nigerian oil workers’ unions also threatened to shut down crude production.
“We hereby direct all production platforms to be on red alert in preparation for total production shutdown,” PENGASSAN union president Babatunde Ogun said in a statement as union officials met in the oil hub of Port Harcourt.
Another union official said he hoped a decision would be reached to shut down wells yesterday night.
The second of the industry’s two unions, NUPENG, also threatened to shut down production.
“We are contemplating shutting down oil production,” said Tokunbo Korodo, Lagos head for NUPENG, which mainly represents blue-collar workers while PENGASSAN’s members are mainly white-collar employees.
“We are just waiting for the outcome of discussions between labour and government today. The outcome of that meeting, if not favourable, will lead us to shutting down oil production.”
While the strike that started on Monday has virtually paralysed the country and brought tens of thousands out into the streets nationwide, oil production has not been affected so far.
Nigeria produces around 2,4 million barrels per day.
The strike was called over a government move to end fuel subsidies from January 1, which caused petrol prices to more than double in Africa’s most populous nation where most people live on less than $2 per day.
Unions are calling on the government to return fuel prices to US$0,40, the level before January 1.
The double crisis facing Nigeria has left the global oil market watching anxiously and, president Goodluck Jonathan facing his toughest challenge since he was elected last year.
Despite a government order late Tuesday that labelled the strike illegal and threatened to withhold pay, protesters took to the streets.
The main groups of protesters in Lagos however remained peaceful, with some 10 000 demonstrators at one of the largest sites where they have gathered daily, dancing and singing along to anti-government songs.
Some vowed they would begin camping out there.
“I am here with my water and toothbrush because we are not leaving this arena until our demand for fuel at 65 naira is met,” said 23-year old Akinola Oyebode at the main protest site in Lagos.
“We shall not be intimidated by the police because our protest is legitimate and constitutional.”
Smaller protests were being organised in other parts of the city, including one calling itself “Occupy Nigeria” in reference to the Occupy Wall Street movement in the United States.
At least six people were killed on the protest’s first day, including one person allegedly shot dead by police in Lagos and two others shot in the northern city of Kano as police and protesters clashed.
Meanwhile, spiralling ethnic and religious violence in various parts of the country fueled further chaos amid warnings of a wider conflict in a country roughly divided between a mainly Moslem north and
predominantly Christian south.
Sixteen people were killed in three separate incidents in the latest such violence.
An Islamic school was torched in the south on Tuesday and Islamist group Boko Haram was blamed for gunning down eight people, including five police officers, in a pub in Potiskum in the northeast.
Amid the sectarian and social turmoil, Nobel literature prize laureate Wole Soyinka, warned in a BBC interview that the country could face a new conflict akin to its Biafra war in the 1960s, which killed more than one million people.
“It’s not an unrealistic comparison — it’s certainly based on many similarities . . . We see the nation heading towards a civil war,” he said.
In addition, a statement signed by Nigerian writers, including renowned novelist Chinua Achebe, author of the seminal novel “Things Fall Apart,” warned that the attacks were “precursors to events that could destabilise the entire country.”
“Clearly, the sophistication and deadly impact of the terrorist attacks suggest an agenda to create widespread fear and, possibly, to foment anarchy or war,” it said.
Analysts said the tension in Africa’s top oil producer contributed to rising world oil prices, with Brent North Sea crude gaining 83 cents to US$113,28 a barrel on Tuesday. UN leader Ban Ki-moon met Nigeria’s Foreign Minister Olugbenga Ashiru in New York as the UN expressed fears about militant groups in West Africa. — AFP-Reuters.
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